ClearCorrect, a Houston-based company that creates clear orthodontic aligners, filed a lawsuit against Align Technology, maker of Invisalign, this week. The purpose of the lawsuit is to prove that some of Align Technology’s patents are invalid and ClearCorrects’s products and processes don’t infringe on them.
(Invisalign and ClearCorrect aren’t alone in the clear braces arena. Red White and Blue, Simpli 5, and RW II by AOA Labs have been around for awhile.)
A press release at Marketwire quotes Dr. Willis Pumphrey, ClearCorrect CEO and Houston dentist as saying, “Fortunately for us, the Constitution provides protection in these ‘David vs. Goliath’ situations. We are merely trying to avoid protracted litigation such as Align’s suit against Ormco Corporation, which took six years and untold legal costs to eventually prove the invalidity of several of Align’s patent claims. We are willing to voluntarily dismiss our suit if Align provides assurance that it will not initiate similar litigation in the future.”
Today, Align Technology responded to the ClearConnect suit in a press release at PR Newswire. Align holds 165 patents and has not discussed the patents with ClearConnect. However, in 2007, Dr. Pumphrey was served with a lawsuit from Align for breach of contract, trademark infringement, and copyright infringement. The doctor paid Align $330K and was “de-certified” to treat patients with Invisalign in the settlement. Align considers the lawsuit to have no merit and plans to “vigorously defend itself against the Complaint.”
SOURCES: PR Newswire.com; Marketwire
2 responses so far ↓
1 janesmith // Mar 2, 2009 at 4:09 am
The Awake of the Sleeping Gene
—-A story about a model who had her lost teeth re-grow
On February 18, 2009, Suely finally revealed a big smile when she was interviewed by the American Mass Media Center. “I’ve got a job in another model company. I love to be a model. I sincerely appreciate Dr. Silva and his son, Mr. Poewe. They are like my godfather who gave me hope to live.”said Suely.
Suely, born in 1982, with a slim figure,is a pretty model of Oregon Singleton Apparel Model Company. Because of the long-term consumption of colored beverages and smoking habits, Suely’s teeth appeared yellow spot, which may affect photographing. She had planned to do porcelain teeth surgery, but the doctor told she was not suitable to do it for some of her teeth were not solid enough. Nither the most advanced whitening teeth surgery, because her yellow spot was hard to conceal. Without any method, she had to use the teeth whitening liquid to cover the yellow spot. Unfortunately, her teeth were riddled with corrosion and also appeared mottled. The doctor warned her of not using the teeth whitening liquid anymore, otherwise, her teeth would be destoried. But for work need, she had to ignore the doctor’s warning.
In March 2006, Suely went to Seattle for a one-week apparel conference. On the last day of the conference, she went to Seattle Hospital of Stomatology, hoping to find treatment information, but the results still let her down. When she was going out of the treatment room, a female dentists over 40-year-old asked what she could do for her. After hearing her symptoms, the woman strongly recommended Suely to an unknown small clinics and said that clinics could cure her. Suely found the clinics at a corner of a residential area. A male dentist over fifty received her. The man gave her some bleaching liniment. Every night before sleep, Suely pasted the liniment on her teeth. Four hours later when the liniment was dry, she tore it off and the yellow spot also disappeared. Suely thought the treatment was effective, so she went to the clinics for more liniment. However, two days later, she felt some dental pain. A week later, some brown spots like sesame appeared on her teeth. But the doctor told those symptom are natural during the cure. So Suely did not doubt any more and continued the treatment. She did not realize how serious the situation was until the day she could not chew and something like powder fell from her teeth.
“My God. Have you been maltreated? Your teeth have been terribly corroded.” the dentist at the State Hospital of Stomatology was shocked when he saw Suely’s teeth. Until then, Suely understood she was cheated by the evil dentist at the small clinics. Her teeth were totally destoried by acid corrosion and became crisp, affecting the roots organization to gums.Teeth could only be extracted in order to avoid inflammation of the infected pulp and blood poisoning which may threaten her life.
Suely submitted her resignation to the model company with tears and accepted the surgery of pulling out all her incisors. Suely cried her heart out when she found herself look like an old lady without teeth. She feared to look into the mirror, did not go outside but stayed at home with great depression. In August 2006, the doctor installed dentures when the gingival wound healed.
In September 2006, at a birthday party of her friend, Suely fell off the staircase and her upper row dentures dropped out of her mouth. She had never experienced such an awkward situation in her life and was totally shocked. At that moment, a gentleman about thirty-year-old passed by. He brought her to her feet and picked up her dentures with a handkerchief. When Suely thanked the man, he looked at her softly and said, “You are a pretty young girl. Why do you use dentures?” Suely burst into tears and told the man her suffering. I deeply sympathize with your experience. I’m Poewe Brewer. I guess my father can help you. said the man.
The next day, accompanied by her mother, Suely visited Poewe’s father, Dr. Silva, who was an expert of Oregon Hospital of Stomatology and had unique research on dental transplant. Dr. Silva examined her teeth and told he would try his best to make these twenty missing teeth grow again. Suely did not believe in it until she heard Dr. Silva’s patient explaination. She felt so lucky to meet someone who could make her teeth rebirth.
Dr. Silva did research on artificial tooth plant before 2004. He did not change his research to tooth rebirth until an accident happened. In March 2004, his assistant, Derk Charlse lost his mother because her dentures stuck the throat and she was suffocated to death when tasting glutinous rice dumplings. He felt very sorry for his assistant. When back at home, his son said, “Dad, why don’t you invent something to help the elderly’s teeth grow again. In that case, the tragedy like your assistant’s mother would be avoided. ” He took his son’s advice and changed to his current research.
Dr. Silva then thought of one thing that occurred during the research: one day, he removed a rat’s central incisor away from its alveolar fossa without removing its nerves, blood vessels and lymph nodes. He wanted to observe whether the incisor could survive independently without a fixed point of support. It was found that apart from the loss of masticatory function, this incisor still grew healthily. Inspired by this discovery, Dr. Silva believed the survival of incisor relied on some basic elements: nerves, blood vessels, lymphoid tissue. Since the tooth was formed by the enamel , if he could find the substance excreting enamel and put it in human’s alveolar fossa while providing enough nutrition for the growth of nerves, blood vessels and lymphoid tissue, then the substance would be able to continue to excrete enamel and the incisor could re-grow.
In mid-September 2006, Dr. Silva returned to his laboratory and started the experiment. He first identified a three-month-old young rat and an adult rat as his observation objects. When the deciduous teeth of the young rat came out, he put the teeth out of the alveolar fossa but retained the nerves, blood vessels and lymphoid tissue, three elements for growth. At high-power electron microscope, Dr. Silva discovered something astonishing. Those three elements like three close “nannies” served the white substances existing in the tooth pulp canal. The white substances could excrete enamel which was transported to dentin where they formed cementum, and then secreted enamel through cementum, resulting in the formation of a solid outer layer of teeth. Dr. Silva called the white substance “new tooth gene”.
However, when Dr. Silva did the same experiment on that adult rat, he did not find any new tooth gene because the teeth of the adult rat had completed development. But he discovered a dense grey parasitic material at the inner wall of the pulp. After sample extraction, Dr. Silva found that the grey material was actually the white new tooth gene. He was extremely excited about this discovery. Thank God, I found the sleeping new tooth gene. It has camouflaged its color and hidden on the pulp wall. It’s so secrete that I almost miss it. said Dr. Silva to his son. He then concluded that if the sleeping new tooth gene could be woken up and continued to excrete enamel, then the new teeth may grow. With that assumption, he conducted a follow-up observation of the young rat.
During the growth of of the young rat’s tooth, the new tooth gene excreted enamel day and night to consolidate the deciduous tooth. By mid-November, the teeth became mature and the deciduous teeth grew into solid permanent teeth. Then the new tooth gene stopped working. Maybe it was too tired after helping the deciduous teeth grow into permanent teeth and it really needed to rest for a while. The time when the new tooth gene fell asleep and stopped excreting enamel happened to be the end of the rat’s five-month dental growth period. Dr. Silva suddenly realized that the new tooth gene’s wake up cycle is exactly identical to the growth cycle. So, if the new tooth gene was woken up again, it would continue to excrete enamel for five months before re-entering dormancy.
“What tiggers the new tooth gene excreting enamel? ” Dr. Silva discussed the question with his wife. “There are always reasons for love and hate. The new tooth gene should excrete enamel under a certain circumstance. Why not finding out the substance around the gene when it is excreting enamel? That substance may wake up the new tooth gene.”smiled his wife. Dr. Silva was suddenly enlightened by his wife. The next morning, he selected a two-month-old white rat as the observation object. He discovered that the new tooth gene excreted enamel everythime when the number of dental pulp cells became the largest. Like lovers, the new tooth gene always treated enamel as a gift whenever it met the dental pulp cells. In return, dental pulp cells excreted a kind of hormone which could quickly upgrade the speed and quantity of the enamel secretion. Dr. Silva then killed the dental pulp cells through X-ray. Without its “lover”, the new tooth gene became depressed and excreted enamel much less. Some even climbed to the pulp wall for dormancy. So far, the research had achieved breakthrough results. Dr. Silva then fetched out the cinsor pulp cells of the adult rat and put them in a culture dish for cultivating. When the cells increased to a certain number, he injected them into the pulp canal which had stopped its growth.
Then something exciting happened. A large number of dental pulp cells flew to the pulp canal kissing the sleeping new tooth gene. Immediately, the new tooth gene woke up and excreted enamel happily. A new growth cycle of the teeth began. Dr. Silva extracted enough new tooth gene in the culture dish and put away the tooth and “the three nannies”:nerves, blood vessels and lymphoid tissue. To create a good environment for tooth growing, Dr. Silva made an artificial tooth which had dental pulp canal and biodegradation. He then inlayed the artificial tooth in the alveolar fossa and meanwhile transplanted “the three nannies” to the artificial tooth. In March 2007, a deciduous tooth grew up inside of the artificial tooth. As the growth of the deciduous tooth, the artificial tooth was gradually degraded. In April, the permanent tooth appeared and the missing teeth of the rat came back.
For humans, all the teeth complete its updating from deciduous to permanent teeth by the age of thirteen. Once our teeth fall, it would no longer be able to grow new teeth. So for those over thirteen and missing their teeth, there must be a living tooth which can be extracted gene and dental pulp cells, otherwise, teeth regeneration will not be able to achieve. For Suely, she only lost twenty teeth and still had twelve teeth left. Therefore, her teeth could be regenerated.
In April 2007, when Dr. Silva told Suely about his scientific achievement, Suely could not wait anymore. “Please don’t hesitate to use my teeth to have a try. I hope your experiment will be successful in humans. ” Dr. Silva started the new tooth regeneration surgery with the consent of Suely’s mother. After extracting the new tooth gene and dental pulp cells, he put them on a culture dish. Two days later, they were put in the biodegrading artificial tooth and grafted in the “the three nannies” successfully.
During the cure, Suely could only eat soft food. She could not have sweet or acid food, and should always use sterilized mouthwash for oral disinfection to prevent inflammation of the new teeth. Although it brought lots of inconvenience to life, Suely was still very happy for she would soon have new teeth. Three months later, her gums itched as if something had taken root inside. Dr. Silva told her those were her new teeth which settled in her alveolar fossa. It was similar to the growth of infants’ deciduous teeth. “Mom, hug me, please. I’m a baby just having my deciduous teeth. I need your care.”joked Suely at her mother’s arms.
2 janesmith // Mar 2, 2009 at 4:09 am
The Awake of the Sleeping Gene
—-A story about a model who had her lost teeth re-grow
On February 18, 2009, Suely finally revealed a big smile when she was interviewed by the American Mass Media Center. “I’ve got a job in another model company. I love to be a model. I sincerely appreciate Dr. Silva and his son, Mr. Poewe. They are like my godfather who gave me hope to live.”said Suely.
Suely, born in 1982, with a slim figure,is a pretty model of Oregon Singleton Apparel Model Company. Because of the long-term consumption of colored beverages and smoking habits, Suely’s teeth appeared yellow spot, which may affect photographing. She had planned to do porcelain teeth surgery, but the doctor told she was not suitable to do it for some of her teeth were not solid enough. Nither the most advanced whitening teeth surgery, because her yellow spot was hard to conceal. Without any method, she had to use the teeth whitening liquid to cover the yellow spot. Unfortunately, her teeth were riddled with corrosion and also appeared mottled. The doctor warned her of not using the teeth whitening liquid anymore, otherwise, her teeth would be destoried. But for work need, she had to ignore the doctor’s warning.
In March 2006, Suely went to Seattle for a one-week apparel conference. On the last day of the conference, she went to Seattle Hospital of Stomatology, hoping to find treatment information, but the results still let her down. When she was going out of the treatment room, a female dentists over 40-year-old asked what she could do for her. After hearing her symptoms, the woman strongly recommended Suely to an unknown small clinics and said that clinics could cure her. Suely found the clinics at a corner of a residential area. A male dentist over fifty received her. The man gave her some bleaching liniment. Every night before sleep, Suely pasted the liniment on her teeth. Four hours later when the liniment was dry, she tore it off and the yellow spot also disappeared. Suely thought the treatment was effective, so she went to the clinics for more liniment. However, two days later, she felt some dental pain. A week later, some brown spots like sesame appeared on her teeth. But the doctor told those symptom are natural during the cure. So Suely did not doubt any more and continued the treatment. She did not realize how serious the situation was until the day she could not chew and something like powder fell from her teeth.
“My God. Have you been maltreated? Your teeth have been terribly corroded.” the dentist at the State Hospital of Stomatology was shocked when he saw Suely’s teeth. Until then, Suely understood she was cheated by the evil dentist at the small clinics. Her teeth were totally destoried by acid corrosion and became crisp, affecting the roots organization to gums.Teeth could only be extracted in order to avoid inflammation of the infected pulp and blood poisoning which may threaten her life.
Suely submitted her resignation to the model company with tears and accepted the surgery of pulling out all her incisors. Suely cried her heart out when she found herself look like an old lady without teeth. She feared to look into the mirror, did not go outside but stayed at home with great depression. In August 2006, the doctor installed dentures when the gingival wound healed.
In September 2006, at a birthday party of her friend, Suely fell off the staircase and her upper row dentures dropped out of her mouth. She had never experienced such an awkward situation in her life and was totally shocked. At that moment, a gentleman about thirty-year-old passed by. He brought her to her feet and picked up her dentures with a handkerchief. When Suely thanked the man, he looked at her softly and said, “You are a pretty young girl. Why do you use dentures?” Suely burst into tears and told the man her suffering. I deeply sympathize with your experience. I’m Poewe Brewer. I guess my father can help you. said the man.
The next day, accompanied by her mother, Suely visited Poewe’s father, Dr. Silva, who was an expert of Oregon Hospital of Stomatology and had unique research on dental transplant. Dr. Silva examined her teeth and told he would try his best to make these twenty missing teeth grow again. Suely did not believe in it until she heard Dr. Silva’s patient explaination. She felt so lucky to meet someone who could make her teeth rebirth.
Dr. Silva did research on artificial tooth plant before 2004. He did not change his research to tooth rebirth until an accident happened. In March 2004, his assistant, Derk Charlse lost his mother because her dentures stuck the throat and she was suffocated to death when tasting glutinous rice dumplings. He felt very sorry for his assistant. When back at home, his son said, “Dad, why don’t you invent something to help the elderly’s teeth grow again. In that case, the tragedy like your assistant’s mother would be avoided. ” He took his son’s advice and changed to his current research.
Dr. Silva then thought of one thing that occurred during the research: one day, he removed a rat’s central incisor away from its alveolar fossa without removing its nerves, blood vessels and lymph nodes. He wanted to observe whether the incisor could survive independently without a fixed point of support. It was found that apart from the loss of masticatory function, this incisor still grew healthily. Inspired by this discovery, Dr. Silva believed the survival of incisor relied on some basic elements: nerves, blood vessels, lymphoid tissue. Since the tooth was formed by the enamel , if he could find the substance excreting enamel and put it in human’s alveolar fossa while providing enough nutrition for the growth of nerves, blood vessels and lymphoid tissue, then the substance would be able to continue to excrete enamel and the incisor could re-grow.
In mid-September 2006, Dr. Silva returned to his laboratory and started the experiment. He first identified a three-month-old young rat and an adult rat as his observation objects. When the deciduous teeth of the young rat came out, he put the teeth out of the alveolar fossa but retained the nerves, blood vessels and lymphoid tissue, three elements for growth. At high-power electron microscope, Dr. Silva discovered something astonishing. Those three elements like three close “nannies” served the white substances existing in the tooth pulp canal. The white substances could excrete enamel which was transported to dentin where they formed cementum, and then secreted enamel through cementum, resulting in the formation of a solid outer layer of teeth. Dr. Silva called the white substance “new tooth gene”.
However, when Dr. Silva did the same experiment on that adult rat, he did not find any new tooth gene because the teeth of the adult rat had completed development. But he discovered a dense grey parasitic material at the inner wall of the pulp. After sample extraction, Dr. Silva found that the grey material was actually the white new tooth gene. He was extremely excited about this discovery. Thank God, I found the sleeping new tooth gene. It has camouflaged its color and hidden on the pulp wall. It’s so secrete that I almost miss it. said Dr. Silva to his son. He then concluded that if the sleeping new tooth gene could be woken up and continued to excrete enamel, then the new teeth may grow. With that assumption, he conducted a follow-up observation of the young rat.
During the growth of of the young rat’s tooth, the new tooth gene excreted enamel day and night to consolidate the deciduous tooth. By mid-November, the teeth became mature and the deciduous teeth grew into solid permanent teeth. Then the new tooth gene stopped working. Maybe it was too tired after helping the deciduous teeth grow into permanent teeth and it really needed to rest for a while. The time when the new tooth gene fell asleep and stopped excreting enamel happened to be the end of the rat’s five-month dental growth period. Dr. Silva suddenly realized that the new tooth gene’s wake up cycle is exactly identical to the growth cycle. So, if the new tooth gene was woken up again, it would continue to excrete enamel for five months before re-entering dormancy.
“What tiggers the new tooth gene excreting enamel? ” Dr. Silva discussed the question with his wife. “There are always reasons for love and hate. The new tooth gene should excrete enamel under a certain circumstance. Why not finding out the substance around the gene when it is excreting enamel? That substance may wake up the new tooth gene.”smiled his wife. Dr. Silva was suddenly enlightened by his wife. The next morning, he selected a two-month-old white rat as the observation object. He discovered that the new tooth gene excreted enamel everythime when the number of dental pulp cells became the largest. Like lovers, the new tooth gene always treated enamel as a gift whenever it met the dental pulp cells. In return, dental pulp cells excreted a kind of hormone which could quickly upgrade the speed and quantity of the enamel secretion. Dr. Silva then killed the dental pulp cells through X-ray. Without its “lover”, the new tooth gene became depressed and excreted enamel much less. Some even climbed to the pulp wall for dormancy. So far, the research had achieved breakthrough results. Dr. Silva then fetched out the cinsor pulp cells of the adult rat and put them in a culture dish for cultivating. When the cells increased to a certain number, he injected them into the pulp canal which had stopped its growth.
Then something exciting happened. A large number of dental pulp cells flew to the pulp canal kissing the sleeping new tooth gene. Immediately, the new tooth gene woke up and excreted enamel happily. A new growth cycle of the teeth began. Dr. Silva extracted enough new tooth gene in the culture dish and put away the tooth and “the three nannies”:nerves, blood vessels and lymphoid tissue. To create a good environment for tooth growing, Dr. Silva made an artificial tooth which had dental pulp canal and biodegradation. He then inlayed the artificial tooth in the alveolar fossa and meanwhile transplanted “the three nannies” to the artificial tooth. In March 2007, a deciduous tooth grew up inside of the artificial tooth. As the growth of the deciduous tooth, the artificial tooth was gradually degraded. In April, the permanent tooth appeared and the missing teeth of the rat came back.
For humans, all the teeth complete its updating from deciduous to permanent teeth by the age of thirteen. Once our teeth fall, it would no longer be able to grow new teeth. So for those over thirteen and missing their teeth, there must be a living tooth which can be extracted gene and dental pulp cells, otherwise, teeth regeneration will not be able to achieve. For Suely, she only lost twenty teeth and still had twelve teeth left. Therefore, her teeth could be regenerated.
In April 2007, when Dr. Silva told Suely about his scientific achievement, Suely could not wait anymore. “Please don’t hesitate to use my teeth to have a try. I hope your experiment will be successful in humans. ” Dr. Silva started the new tooth regeneration surgery with the consent of Suely’s mother. After extracting the new tooth gene and dental pulp cells, he put them on a culture dish. Two days later, they were put in the biodegrading artificial tooth and grafted in the “the three nannies” successfully.
During the cure, Suely could only eat soft food. She could not have sweet or acid food, and should always use sterilized mouthwash for oral disinfection to prevent inflammation of the new teeth. Although it brought lots of inconvenience to life, Suely was still very happy for she would soon have new teeth. Three months later, her gums itched as if something had taken root inside. Dr. Silva told her those were her new teeth which settled in her alveolar fossa. It was similar to the growth of infants’ deciduous teeth. “Mom, hug me, please. I’m a baby just having my deciduous teeth. I need your care.”joked Suely at her mother’s arms.
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